The Scream, Edvard Munch’s 1893 masterpiece, anticipated the existential angst that creeped into European consciousness after the collapse of Christian belief. One version of the painting (Munch apparently painted many) was mysteriously stolen two years ago. Thankfully, Oslo police recovered it yesterday it in a shady operation, fraught with secrecy.
Jaishree says on Navya Shastra that 50 percent of Tamil Nadu Dalits have converted to Christianity, though official census figures do not reflect that. Personally, if I were marginalized by the entire mass of Indian society, I might consider doing the same. At Navya Shastra, we speak against the still prevalent casteism that mars, and occasionally destroys, the religious lives of Dalits. Personally, I also support Ambedkarite Buddhism, which combines a faith of social protest with an enlightened rationalism. Ambedkarite Buddhists have also added meditative practices to their spiritual heritage, and are in the midst of creating not only a literary tradition but also a popular culture.
There are probably several thousand adopted Indian children living in white American homes. Some parents contend that they are under no obligation to inculcate any Indian traditions into their children’s uprbringing. Other parents send their kids to youth camps. From what I have read, these camps are short immersions into both classical and popular Indian culture -from rangoli painting and yoga to Bollywood dancing. I think this is wonderful. All adopted children are bound to search for their biological roots once they have enough agency to do so. While biology is not destiny, there is no denying its inexorable pull on us, and behind the American there stands an Indian. This is all the more important because, in America, adoptees are likely to encounter very many children who share their ethnicity.
In the Lok Sabha, BJP deputy leader V.K. Malhotra said it was unfortunate that some people were objecting to the song [Vande Mataram]. … "Its singing should be made compulsory. Those who do not wish to sing this can leave the country," Malhotra said.
Parliament rocked over ‘Vande Mataram’ | IndianMuslims.info
Vande Mataram (’Victory to the Mother’) is a patriotic song written by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee that first appeared in his 1882 novel Anandamath. Anandamath depicts a fictional band of militant Hindu ascetics who overthrow Muslim rule during one of the 1770s famines in Bengal. It is widely considered to be the seminal work of early Hindu nationalism. Chatterjee put forth the case - not only in Anandamath but through a large opus of stories, essays and articles - that Hindus were not amorphous congeries of castes and communities, but a single cohesive body, a nation.
I recently read a new, largely adequate translation by Cambridge Indologist Julius Lipner. Chatterjee is one of the shapers of modern Bengali, and I have the feeling that some of his lyricism cannot be represented in English - and Lipner, unfortunately, is no poet. The translation includes an introduction concerning Chatterjee’s views on Hinduism, his literary career, and the novel’s reception among the Bengali cognoscenti - in addition to copious explanatory notes. Anandamath makes it utterly clear that Chatterjee regarded Muslims as foreign interlopers who had subjugated and colonized Hindus, and early on, Indian Muslims protested the Hindu symbolism in the song.
But by the year of Anandamath’s publication, the British had long since usurped power from feckless Muslim overlords, so the novel is actually a protest against their rule. The sanyasi’s song swiftly became a rallying cry for the Indian independence movement; freedom fighters of all religious backgrounds sung the song at meetings of the Indian National Congress. The British characters in the novel are grotesqueries whose Bengali is riddled with malapropisms, or straight-backed Machiavellians scheming for control of Bengal. Chatterjee was actually forced to change the novel’s ending so as to justify British rule.
The song is thought to be India’s national song, though its official status is quite ambiguous. Another song, Rabindranath Tagore’s Jana Mana Gana, enjoys, I think, higher standing, as India’s national anthem. Here’s how Dr. Rajendra Prasad, one of the drafters of the Indian Constitution, described the status of the national songs:
The composition consisting of words and music known as Jana Gana Mana is the National Anthem of India, subject to such alterations as the Government may authorise as occasion arises, and the song Vande Mataram, which has played a historic part in the struggle for Indian freedom, shall be honored equally with Jana Gana Mana and shall have equal status with it. (Applause) I hope this will satisfy members. (Constituent Assembly of India, Vol. XII, 24-1-1950) [Link]
My take: The song has long since transcended its context. It’s a national symbol, a reminder of the struggle against imperialism, a thread in the fabric of the secular Indian Republic, and ultimately uniting. If you don’t like it, do as the American atheists do when they are subjected to the God-centric Declaration of Independence: excercise your right to sit down. Otherwise, stand up and sing. Narrow-minded nationalists and opportunistic rabble rousers should not use the song as a wedge to divide religious communities.
Here is a (rather Victorian) translation by Sri Aurobindo.
Based on our projections, Asian Indians already number more than 2.5 million, and have now — for the first time — slightly eclipsed the Filipino American population to become the second largest Asian group in the United States. It is expected that they will equal or outnumber Chinese Americans in 2025.
What this also means is that as 2010 approaches, with Asian Indians representing 1.5 percent of the U.S. population, and considering there are 7,424 state legislators nationwide, the Indian American community should have at least 100 State legislators of Indian origin as opposed to the four who currently hold office.
INDOlink - Diaspora - Desi Americans To Cross 4.5 Million in 2010
Making projections based on five-year trends is - ahem - speculative, though it certainly does "feel" like there are many more desis around, at least in New Jersey. Interestingly, Indian illegal immigration is rising simultaneously, which typically happens when there is a surge in legal immigration. Regarding legislators - the newly arrived can’t even become citizens for five years, so Assisi’s predicted burgeoning of elected officials is woefully premature.
(Aside: Given that esteemed Senators casually taunt us with racial slurs like macaca, I am not persuaded that we’ve arrived in the way some of our brand boosters proclaim.)
The New York Times and others announced a few years ago that many high-achieving Indians were returning to India. The lifestyle in India, the assurances that accrue from being among one’s own, and managerial salaries that, when adjusted for cost of living, may be the highest in the world, lured many people back to the obstreperous Bangalore traffic. Some even predicted that the reverse brain-drain would precipitate a drop in the Indian-American population.
Obviously, this scenario hasn’t panned out. While the Indian economy is growing at 9 percent a year, the per capita GDP is still around $3100, in comparison to $41000 for the United States; so there will continue to be people who can simply do better here (better in terms of $, not in any metaphysical sense).
And who are these illegals? I suspect many are fellas who’ve overstayed their expired H1-B visas; or Gujurati Patels who slip in on tourist visas, don a baseball cap and head for the fryer at their cousin’s Dunkin Donuts, where everyone is so blindingly brown no one notices mundane things like immigrant status; and poor old mummies and daddies who wile away their waning years watching the damsels on Zee TV.
They’ll come, and come some more. And then they’ll get back on top… never mind.
This mishmash of religious iconography menaces the entrance of a temple in Roorkee, India. The Om triumphs majestically over the Cross, because -duh?- it encompasses ALL. Just kidding.
No, really.
The temple at Idamani - a small Dalit hamlet situated spectacularly on an island near Chennai - is Navya Shastra’s first construction project. The 2004 tsunami decimated Idamani and much of its surroundings, so Navya Shastra decided to step in and help in a small way. We owe the project’s success to Navya Shastra supremo Jaishree. The picture is from the July Kumbabhishekham (inauguration) ceremony organized with the assistance of our friends from Aim for Seva.
As a Hindu reform organization, our ultimate goal is not to build temples, but to instill our principles of equality in the hearts of all Hindus. We intend to continue our relationship with the village by funding a scholarship for promising students and - just as importantly - visiting whenever we happen to be around Chennai.
Suraj Bhan - a prominent Indian politician and civil servant - died yesterday of natural causes.
Last year, Bhan gathered together a group of Hindu leaders - including the Sringeri Shankaracharya - in an effort to purge the Hindu scriptures of passages offensive to India’s former untouchables (Dalits). Depressingly, there are several festering in the Upanishads, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.
Bhan would have been the new Manu had he succeeded - and one of the most influential Hindus in recent history. Unlike Manu, Bhan was not a Brahmin; he was born into a Punjabi Dalit family.
Knowing the inertia that is India, I presume this project is now a dead fish floating on the Ganges, but nevertheless, we must thank Bhan for his audacity. His example gives courage to future reformers intent on carrying out his vision.
Farewell, Mr. Bhan.
Just as I thought. From the venerable Sunday Times:
The Americans celebrated as if the war of independence had been re-fought. Chelsea pottered off without a care in the world.
MLS All-Stars 1 Chelsea 0: Wilting Blues feel the heat - Sunday Times - Times Online
